To understand the anatomy of a compelling sports-talk genre radio show that’s really much more than advertised, schedule an appointment with Dr. Robert Klapper.

The beauty of it: It’s free.

Every once in a while, a sports-talk host can put himself in an emergency room situation by trying to extract his foot from his mouth. Perhaps, it’s the result of another knee-jerk response to something that just happened.

Then there’s Dr. Klapper, a 56-year-old orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centerr who is as much a surfer and sculptor, invasively noninvasive about the way he has repaired whatever damage others have done to what some many consider to be a trivial media platform.

Mostly, because his heart’s in the right place.

In slicing his way through the KSPN-AM (710) Saturday morning staple “Weekend Warrior” show the last three-plus years, Klapper may not necessarily have his audience in stiches by the time the 7-to-9 a.m. program gives way to “real” sports talk, but that’s just because Klapper works as deftly in the downtown L.A. studios as he would in an operating room.

“I might do six hip-replacement surgeries every Friday, and I come home tired, but I’ve gotta tell you, after a dinner with my wife, I’m wide awake at 3 a.m. and I can’t wait to drive into the studio and do the radio show, because I feel like a kid again,” Klapper explained while keeping tabs on his TV at home in Encino on the crazy finish to Game 5 of the Clippers-Thunder series.

“After doing it this long, I can’t say I’m a rookie anymore. I get it. I know about timing and pacing and storytelling, connecting with guests. To me, it’s just trying to interconnect medicine with art and sports, all things I’m passionate about. It’s the phrase I use often on the show — I’m a better surgeon because I sculpt and I’m a better sculptor because I surf.”

And you’re a better listener if you listen to him.

The New York native and Columbia University graduate who also got a degree in art history (he sculpts on Saturday afternoons at a Manhattan Beach studio) and learned surfing during a medical internship in Hawaii (he owns a home in Ventura just so he can get two days a week on the waves) is, above everything else, just a good dude.

A life storyteller and hands-on teacher with the analogies he uses to get the listener involved as an amateur assistant to understand what’s going wrong with an athlete’s body — from the professionals who go on the disabled list to the middle-aged “pre-op” patients trying to discern what nerve they just pinched in their neck after a trip to the gym.

His “Klappervision” example recently about why the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw needed extra time to strengthen his shoulder led to a dissertation of the teres major muscle and how it affects the rotation of the shoulder blade with the ball-and-socket joint. Klapper told listeners to imagine Pat Sajak pulling down to spin the “Wheel of Fortune” on the TV game show — the teres major muscle is in the 6 o’clock position on the shoulder blade, and when it contracts, it rotates the scapula and elevates the ball and socket joint above the shoulder.

Or something like that. You’ve got just enough information to make you sound like you belong in the ER.

With “Klappervision,” an ankle can be like a shoebox. A rotating knee is like the fingers that move subtly in holding a basketball.

The fact that Klapper is a doctor and not just playing one on the radio gives him the credibility to comment with some certainty, as well as provide some information about how something in an athlete’s body works. He said due to doctor-patient confidentiality, he would never talk about someone he has worked on.

But if you want a second opinion, take it from someone whose former patients included Wilt Chamberlain, who needed hip surgery in the mid-‘90s so he could keep playing beach volleyball. It led to Klapper becoming a much bigger Lakers fan and becoming more connected with the team that uses 710-AM as their flagship station.

Since his arrival as the KSPN program director in 2010, Mike Thompson has championed Klapper’s show since hearing his opinions on the airwaves. Klapper’s first connection with the station came after his offer of unsolicited advice from the audience during a Lakers pre-game remote show, when the hosts were unsure of whether Andrew Bynum’s latest knee injury would keep him out from the upcoming game.

“From the start, he’s had all the essentials of someone who can do this — he’s funny, smart, isn’t caught up in his own ego,” said Thompson. “He’s become popular, even on his podcasts, because he’s such a character. And he’s just ripe for this listener demo, too — guys who play sports but are getting older. Before you know it, he’ll have you going to physical therapy for a shoulder impingement like he did with me.”

TV has already come pulling for Klapper, which could impinge on his medical practice. Fox Sports executive vice president George Greenberg has been wooing Klapper for several years and has set up a shoot next month for a pilot episode of what is tentatively called “The Doctor Is In,” using more animation to take “Klappervision” to the next level. Fox execs talk about how Klapper, who has also authored books about how to prevent knee and hip surgery by healing, could easily find himself working NFL pregame Sundays or on FS1’s “Live” show to provide expert medical analysis on current events.

Klapper says his loyalty to Thompson and KSPN will keep him in the Saturday morning slot going forward for awhile.

“Radio is so special because of this intimacy, so unscripted,” said Klapper. “It’s the greatest thing in the world. I think it comes through how much fun I’m having doing this.”

thomas.hoffarth@langnews.com@tomhoffarth on Twitter

RECORD, PAUSE, DELETE

Gauging the media’s high- and low-level marks of the week, and what’s ahead:

THE GLORY OF KAREEM

They’ve got a working title for a new HBO Sports-driven documentary on the life and times of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, targeting a launch around the 2015 NBA All-Star game in New York. How does “Kareem: A Minority Of One” sound? “To me, that says a lot, because I know the impression of him is this lone wolf — but he’s really a gregarious, affable, social guy,” said Mike Tollin, the San Fernando Valley-based sports TV and movie veteran serving as executive producer for the project through Mandalay Sports Media. Which is the company he co-founded with Peter Guber. Who is one of the Dodgers minority owners, and must be aware that Kareem, with his Brooklyn Dodgers cap, frequents the owners box at Dodgers Stadium hanging out with Magic Johnson. It’s not that complicated, right? Tollin said he understands that Abdul-Jabbar had a less-then-affable relationship with the media during a basketball career that spanned a three-time national college player of the year run at UCLA (1966-’69) and five NBA championships during his 14 years with the Lakers (1975-89). Can this doc be part of his media rehabilitation process? “I think I’m like a lot of people who have an impression of him based on nothing, and I can take a fresh look at this,” said Tollin, who had only briefly met Abdul-Jabbar prior to this project that has already began filming. “The challenge is always to tell the story that people think they know and then have a version which they had no idea about. The plan is to make this far-reaching and free-wheeling — jazz, literature, politics, yoga, martial arts, baseball. He’s in a pretty comfortable place in his life. I hope this will open a lot of eyes.”

FORUM AFTER DARK REDUX

Last Saturday, USC’s Galen Center became a TV-ready venue for boxing, as ESPN found a window to carry a WBC heavyweight championship. For this Saturday’s HBO “Boxing After Dark” series, it’s L.A. going back to the future — the Inglewood Forum — for the WBO welterweight title elimination bout (10:15 p.m., delayed) between veteran Juan Manuel Marquez and Mike Alvarado. Back in February 1998, HBO’s very first “Boxing After Dark” show was at the Forum in its previous incarnation, where Marco Antonio Barrera knocked out Kennedy McKinney in the 12th round. Jim Lampley, who called that fight “as an intense and exciting as a prizefight can be” when he did it for HBO some 18 years ago, returns to the refurbished concert-friendly Forum for Marquez-Alvarado (alongside Max Kellerman and Roy Jones Jr.) and can speak directly to the history of the arena. “A lot of the pertinent history has directly to do with Marquez, who forged some of his early career in the Forum,” Lampley said. The 65-year-old Lampley, who spent a time in his career as a newscaster at KCBS-Channel 2, said the most important element of a discussion of L.A.-based boxing over the years is that it “is still an ardent fight town, with a long, rich history of great fights and great crowds in the city of the angels, and more surely to come in a sport which was once East Coast-centric and is now very much the opposite.” As for whether this new music-centric Forum can harken back to its boxing glory days despite its new configuration, Lampley said: “I’ve covered two fights at Radio City Music Hall. If it can happen there, it can happen at the Forum.”

EXTENDED TRIAL HOURS AT INDY

This weekend’s new two-day time trial to determine the lineup for the May 25 Indianapolis 500 creates a different kind of TV drama, as nine of the 33 fastest cars after all have had a four-lap qualifying run on Saturday (1 p.m., Channel 7) will advance to a “shootout” to determine the pole as well as the first three rows on Sunday (10 a.m., Channel 7). Cars in positions 10 to 33 also must re-qualify on Sunday to determine the final starting positions for rows 4-11. “The whole risk-reward thing is an interesting component to this, because the numbers show that the guys who start up front in this race win it the most times,” said Allen Bestwick, a veteran of NASCAR coverage during his 30-year broadcasting career but landed the Indy 500 assignment for the first time. “Hopefully it’s as nail-biting as we think it’s going to be.” Bestwick, joined by analyst Eddie Cheever and Scott Goodyear for ABC’s 50th year of Indy 500 race coverage, starts what he hopes is a long run on this event that has seen Jim McKay (18 years) and Paul Page (14 years) as the two most tenured voices for it. “I can remember all the great people who did this and were an inspiration for me wanting to get into broadcasting — McKay, who was an idol for me, Jackie Stewart, Sam Posey, Chris Schenkel,” said Bestwick. “To spin ahead now and all of the sudden sit in that chair for this race, it’s bucket-list stuff. It’s phenomenal, really almost hard to imagine.” ESPN3 also has trials coverage Saturday (8 a.m.-to-noon) and Sunday (7-9 a.m.) leading into the ABC coverage.

Tom Hoffarth is a freelancer. He had been with the Daily News/Southern California News Group since 1992 as a general assignment sports reporter, columnist and specialist in the sports media. He has been honored by the Associated Press for sports columnists and honored by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association for his career work. His favorite sportscaster of all time: Vin Scully, for professional and personal reasons. He considers watching Zenyatta win the Breeders' Cup 2009 Classic to be the most memorable sporting event he has covered in his career. Go figure that.

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